Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

What drug lords learned from big business. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

Gangster Warlords

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps 500 body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit men to gun down 41 police officers and prison guards in two days. In Southern Mexico a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns, and humans.

Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio

Nemesis is the story of an ordinary man who became the king of the largest slum in Rio, the head of a drug cartel, and perhaps Brazil's most wanted criminal. It's a gripping tale of gold hunters and evangelical pastors, bent police and rich-kid addicts, quixotic politicians and drug lords with math degrees. Traversing through rain forests and high-security prisons, filthy slums and glittering shopping malls, this is also the story of how change came to Brazil.

Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mafia Boss Vincent Gigante

Vincent "Chin" Gigante. He started out as a professional boxer - until he found his true calling as a ruthless contract killer. His doting mother's pet name for the boy evolved into his famous alias, "Chin", a nickname that struck fear throughout organized crime as he routinely ordered the murders of mobsters who violated the Mafia code. Vincent Gigante was hand-picked by Vito Genovese to run the Genovese Family when Vito was sent to prison. Chin raked in more than $100 million for the Genovese Family, all while evading federal investigators.

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals, and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China, and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 percent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 percent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.

Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System

A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast

Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography

Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography is an intimate look at the day-to-day dealings of a drug kingpin in the heart of the ghetto. It's also the story of a boy born in poverty in Texas who grew up in a single-parent household in the heart of South Central, who was pushed through the school system each year and came out illiterate. His options were few, and he turned to drug dealing. This untold autobiography is not only personal, but also historical in its implications.

American Desperado: My Life - From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset

In 2008 veteran journalist Evan Wright, acclaimed for his New York Times best-selling book Generation Kill and co-writer of the Emmy-winning HBO series it spawned, began a series of conversations with super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the fabulously successful documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Those conversations would last three years, during which time Wright came to realize that Roberts was much more than the de-facto “transportation chief” of the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s, much more than a facilitator of a national drug epidemic.

The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin

The epic tale of the rise to power of Russia's current president - the only complete biography in English - that fully captures his emergence from shrouded obscurity and deprivation to become one of the most consequential and complicated leaders in modern history, by the former New York Times Moscow bureau chief.

Left of Boom: How a Young CIA Case Officer Penetrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

On September 11, 2001, Doug Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work, he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire.

The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the "Alt-Right"

'But Hillary is a known Luciferian,' he tried. 'She's not a known Luciferian,' I said. 'Well, yes and no,' he said. In The Elephant in the Room, Jon Ronson, the New York Times best-selling author of The Psychopath Test, Them, and So You've Been Publicly Shamed, travels to Cleveland at the height of summer to witness the Republican National Convention.

Brazillionaires

When Bloomberg News invited the young American journalist Alex Cuadros to report on Brazil's emerging class of billionaires at the height of the historic Brazilian boom, he was poised to cover two of the biggest business stories of our time: how the giants of the developing world were triumphantly taking their place at the center of global capitalism and how wealth inequality was changing societies everywhere.

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War

In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from 45 to 72 years. The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era.

isaiah says:"The book is a great review of how we got to where we are today"

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill's Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops

From award-winning historian, war reporter, and author Damien Lewis (Zero Six Bravo, Judy) comes the incredible true story of the top-secret "butcher-and-bolt" black ops units Prime Minister Winston Churchill assigned the task of stopping the unstoppable German war machine. Criminals, rogues, and survivalists, the brutal tactics and grit of these "deniables" would define a military unit the likes of which the world had never seen.

Once upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs and the Greatest Wealth in History

The best-selling author of Bringing Down the House (63 weeks on the New York Times best seller list and the basis for the hit movie 21) and The Accidental Billionaires (the basis for the Academy Award-winning film The Social Network) delivers an epic drama of wealth, rivalry, and betrayal among megawealthy Russian oligarchs - and its international repercussions.

War Dogs: How Three Stoners From Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History

In January 2007 two young stoners from Miami Beach - one a ninth-grade dropout, the other a licensed masseur - won a $300 million Department of Defense contract to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. Incredibly, instead of fulfilling the order with high-quality arms, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz - the dudes - bought cheap Communist-style surplus ammunition from Balkan gunrunners.

The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East

This is a book rife with revelations, from the secret communications between the Obama administration and the Iranian government to dispatches from the front lines of the new field of financial warfare. For listeners of Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, The Iran Wars exposes the hidden history of a conflict most Americans don't even realize is being fought but whose outcome could have far-reaching geopolitical implications.

Federal Agent Robert Mazur spent five years undercover as a money launderer to the international underworld, gaining access to the zenith of a criminal hierarchy safeguarded by a circle of dirty bankers and businessmen who quietly shape power across the globe. These men and women control multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking empires, running their organizations like public companies.

A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”

The term Mexican Drug War misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the US role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from and sell weapons to Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the US prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer - with increasingly deadly consequences.

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic

American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis. The narrative, which swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, is populated by a diverse cast of characters.

Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits.

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu

Like Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway, and Tet, the battle at Dien Bien Phu - a strategic attack launched by France against the Vietnamese in 1954 after eight long years of war - marked a historic turning point. By the end of the 56-day siege, a determined Viet Minh guerrilla force had destroyed a large tactical French colonial army in the heart of Southeast Asia.

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics. Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatest managed to gain entree into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment.

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

Once, war was a temporary state of affairs - a violent but brief interlude between times of peace. Today America's wars are everywhere and forever: Our enemies change constantly and rarely wear uniforms, and virtually anything can become a weapon. As war expands, so does the role of the US military. Today military personnel don't just "kill people and break stuff". Instead they analyze computer code, train Afghan judges, build Ebola isolation wards, eavesdrop on electronic communications, develop soap operas, and patrol for pirates.

Publisher's Summary

Like many other things, organized crime has been globalized. In McMafia, Misha Glenny discusses, among other groups, the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, and Chinese labor smugglers, explaining how organized crime exploits the developing world's poverty, as well as new technologies. He makes clear that global crime and terrorism are rooted in the West's material affluence.

What the Critics Say

"Former BBC World correspondent Glenny presents a riveting and chilling journey through the myriad criminal syndicates flourishing in our increasingly globalized world....Readers yearning for a deeper understanding of the real-life, international counterparts to The Sopranos need look no further than Glenny's engrossing study." (Publishers Weekly)

Misha Glenny, in McMAfia, provides a general overview of the rise of organized crime over the past twenty years. She covers every point of the globe, inserting historical background, economic context, and sociological insights. The book will be an eye opener to those who have yet to be introduced to the dark side as Glenny presents it. The book is well written, very informative and aptly read by John Lee.

Other books available through Audible which I have heard and which flesh out topics covered by Glenny might be of additional interest.

The Informant by Kurt Eichewald - an abridgement telling the story of one person's experience as a whistle blower and the ADM price fixing scandle.

Ivory Ghosts - The story of the ivory trade historically and in contemporary context.

Snakehead - the smuggling of undocumented native Chinese from Fujian province into New York city in the 1980s and 1990s.

Havana Nocturne - English's tale of the mob in pre-Castro Cuba.

Gomorrah - Saviano's gripping account of Naples and the rule of the Cammora crime network. Don't miss this one.

Did you know that organized crime is responsible for an estimated 15 to 20% of the world GDP (counting tax evasion)? Or that narcotics accounts for about 70% of criminal profits, with energy, guns, prostitution, and gambling making up the bulk of the rest? I didn't know any of this - and I'm not sure I'll be able to think about "the economy" ever again in the same way. Written by a journalist, but with an insiders perspective and a novelists sense of character and pacing, McMafia is one of the best books I read in 2008.

This is a well-written, exhaustively-reported book that takes you in-depth to all parts of global organized crime. I found the section on the Balkans and Russia to be particularly enlightening, not just about the mafia but also in how Glenny explains the overall history of these regions through the lens of lawlessness. I feel like I finally understand what a Russian oligarch actually is.

If anything, the book gets a bit dull towards the end due to the repetiveness of each national history. The same story seems to unfold everywhere, but I only really got bored in the book's final sections.

This book vaguely reminded me of Dope, Inc. in terms of the strong focus on telling a story rather than a litany of facts.

Have you listened to any of John Lee’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not, but he is perhaps the best I've heard so will be sure to look for other works by him.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Organized crime, coming soon to a town near you.

Any additional comments?

Misha Glenny is an effortlessly brilliant author. Her spectacular phrasing and word choice keep the narrative both beautiful and tight, but she never lets her prose get in the way of the people, places, and events she's describing. She structured this book well, and John Lee's narration is world class.

So much crime, so much corruption. Author puts all this mayhem into context -- globalization, international and domestic politics. Not sure if Misha Glenny writes for The Economist but it's that style.

A brilliant book by a brilliant writer. He tackles an extremely important subject and brings to light how the globalization of criminal enterprise may affect the rule of law everywhere. Very well written and is a must read.

It started off as an impressive investigative work. Reader's accent adds personality to characters and author's interviews and personal accounts are quite interesting. However, the second part of the unabridged audiobook ends up on a seemingly irrelevant rant about the United States government being corrupt, incompetent, racist and outright combative towards other countries and their treatment of drug offenses.

While I disagree, I think the author is more than entitled to express his views about the United States and any of its policies that he takes issue with, but not in a book about organized crime (Unless it directly relates to the material, which in this case, it did not).

After spending 2 credits and being very excited about listening to this piece, I found myself annoyed at the fact that 1 of those credits was entirely wasted.

Another reviewer suggested some other organized crime audiobooks which I will be purchasing, I suggest you do the same and pick up a cheap copy of this book on amazon so you can stop reading when all the nonsense starts and only spend a fraction of what I spent.

Would you ever listen to anything by Misha Glenny again?

No

What about John Lee’s performance did you like?

He added great character to the many different personalities explored.

I thought this would be a great way to understand global politics. Instead it is chock full of characters and places that are not explained in a simply way. Perhaps I am not intelligent enough to follow this seemingly endless unwinding of globalization since the fall of the Berlin wall. John Lee is a great narrator,but the topic is too depressing and confusing to the lay person to bring out his brilliance. I gave up at chapter 4 and asked for a refund. Give this one a pass;unless you are already steeped in global politics thoroughly.